This Is Water
by effies-scrapbook
Summary: It's what you're made of. — Varrick grows up and plays businessman in a world that he will learn to own. / Pre-series. Varrick-centric. Zhurrick.


**this is water**

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><p>summary: it's what you're made of — varrick grows up and plays businessman in a world that he will learn to own. varrick-centric, zhurrick.<p>

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><p>When he is fourteen, his mother's body is cast in ice and sent back to the ocean in a canoe. This is Water Tribe tradition, of course; they send their benders back to the sea where they belong, where they were crafted from droplets of water and molded into human form. She will melt, she will decompose, she will sink into the waves and meet her maker at long last. A prayer spirals out of the high priest's mouth and Varrick has to pretend that he knows the words until he buckles into himself and begins to cry.<p>

"Boys don't cry," his father says under his breath, and it's almost funny because his father has tears in his eyes himself. His brother Manirak clings to him like he will settle for his comfort, but Varrick does not yield to his kindness.

And Varrick — in Varrick tradition, of course — does not listen to his father. His mother would have let him mourn, and would have tried to make it better, too.

(But his mother is gone, and it's his father's fault, and it's not fair. It's not fair. _It's not fair_.)

His father gets down on both knees in front of the funeral party and grips Varrick's shoulders tightly and forces the boy to look at him. "Come on, Varrick, boys don't cry — boys are strong — you have to be...come on, boys don't —"

The man rests his head on Varrick's shaking shoulders. And then it's all apologies from there.

His father falls apart and cries for what seems like hours. "I'm sorry, Varry, I tried, I tried, I tried."

For his part, Varrick stops crying eventually.

X

"It's a shame," the other villagers say, "that Amorak is too sad to save his children."

"Amorak hasn't left the house in some time."

"I hear that Amorak-"

Manirak turns to defend their father, but Varrick rests a hand on his brother's shoulder and pulls him away. "They don't matter," he tells the younger boy. "They don't. I promise you."

Varrick himself does not believe his own words, but he tries.

X

For non-benders like him, there are few opportunities for work in the village. Varrick's mother was a healer, the best of her kind — but there is no one to take her place and the apothecary is sold along with many of the clothes and jewelry she left behind. Her husband, previously a fierce waterbender known for his talent in seal-hunting, wallows in sadness and guilt — the boat had tipped when he was not looking, and he was too slow to save her from the cold waters, and he could not heal the healer herself — and he stays in bed for days and days and days, staring at the ceiling with unmoving eyes and a silent body. Varrick is almost convinced that he has lost his father, too, because months go by and Manirak nearly starves and the man does not seem to care.

Varrick has little time to mourn his mother's death. The table is bare of food and the house falls into a state of disrepair, and soon enough the neighbors run out of pity to offer them. He's hungry — they all are, even if his father refuses to acknowledge any feeling that isn't sadness. So Varrick begins to hunt seals. It's a disgusting trade, built for men who do not appreciate cleanliness and the finer things once offered to him. But it pays, albeit not well but still — eventually, Manirak returns to a healthy weight and the elders stop threatening to exile the family after awhile for their lack of trying.

It's a hard life and Varrick knows it. Sometimes, he wonders how different things might have been had his father was the one to fall into the sea.

X

Seal-hunting is not an easy task. It involves hard labor and a numb conscious, two things that he has no interest in upholding. So Varrick — in Varrick tradition — invents a quicker and cleaner method of skinning the seals, builds a machine to carry out those processes, and learns to get others to sell it for him. Within a few months it's a business, and within a year, all he has to do is count the money and make sure things are going smoothly.

He's only seventeen when he puts an official name on it — Varrick's Seal Skins, which isn't creative but isn't too bad, he thinks.

When he tells his father that their family will be okay, after all this time, he swears he sees the old man's lips tug into a smile. Words do not come out of his mouth, but it's something, damn it, and it's a victory he will take.

X

An Earth Kingdom family moves into the village and there's talk about industrializing the South Pole to match the speed of all the other nations in the new world.

The Earth Kingdom family is not a family, per se — it's a niece and an uncle, together by circumstance and tragedy, which is too long a story to tell to a perfect stranger. The man is a talented earth bender and famous architect from Ba Sing Se, and Avatar Aang himself had asked him to move to the South Pole to spearhead the industrialization movement, starting with the smallest village in the nation. The (not _really_) family moves in next door silently, passing through the neighborhood with little noise as possible, as if they aren't really there and have no interest in letting others know that they are.

Varrick, of course, will not stand for this; of the few things he inherited from his mother, a strong sense of wanting to make an impression persists.

He knocks the morning after they move in, waiting by the door with an impatiently charming grin and a few slices of bread the old man from down the street baked for the new neighbors. The ground rumbles for a minute, and from behind the door, Varrick can hear a clatter and hushed whispers, which manages to coax a smirk out of him.

The door opens and he has his welcome speech all planned out. Casting his eyes downward and running his free hand through his hair, Varrick begins, "Thought I'd give you guys a warm welcome — well, _cold_, should I say — to the South Pole. I'm—"

He looks up.

The girl in the hall — dark hair tousled in mid-sleep, posture slouched under the weight of a long journey overseas, traditional Earth Kingdom wear wrinkled like overused bed sheets — looks at him expectantly.

"Yes...?" she prompts, narrowing her eyes in confusion.

And it isn't because she's stunningly gorgeous or anything — cute for sure, maybe even pretty if she hadn't just obviously woken up — but there's something about her that he can't just quite put a name on it. He shakes his head and recovers — there goes his good first impression.

"...I'm Varrick," he says.

She nods her head once, face stoic. "Zhu Li."

"Zhu Li," he repeats, and saying her name feels like a breath finally released and spirits _damn it_, what is wrong with him? He shoves the plate of bread into her hesitantly opened hands and gives a smile that probably looks goofy on his face. "Here—a treat from the neighborhood!"

She holds the plate tentatively and peers at the carvings into the crust of the bread. Her lips tug at the corners when she realizes what the markings are — penguins and tidal waves, a masterpiece in itself. The girl's fingers wrap around the door frame and opens it a bit wider; lifting her eyes up to meet his stare, she says, "Hey, um... Varrick, right? We just moved in and all, so we're still packing, but you're welcome to come in. My uncle is in the kitchen, if you'd like to meet him."

"Actually," he begins, rubbing the back of his head nervously, "I have to go to work right now. But if you come into town — Varrick's Seal Skins! Keeps you warm all year 'round, you know."

So lame.

So. _Lame_.

_Damn it_, he mentally curses himself.

Zhu Li widens her eyes and hides her laugh behind her hands and drops the plate of bread in her fit of giggles. It almost crashes to the ground, but it doesn't — with one tap of her foot, the earth on which the house is founded rises and meets the plate halfway. Varrick, and not for a lack of trying, is caught in an attempt to save it from a fate on the cold ground.

"I'm sorry, that's just really cute," Zhu Li says, reverting almost seamlessly to her previous state of zero expression, if not for the ghost of a smile hiding behind her lips.

Varrick feels his cheeks redden. "The name is still under works...for a couple of months now..."

"No! No, I like it. Straightforward, concise, includes all a good business needs to explain," Zhu Li cuts in, almost alarmed.

"Oh, well—"

"—Zhu Li! Where are you?" a voice booms from farther into the house.

Her head spins and she answers immediately, "I'll be right there, Uncle!" She turns back to a stunned Varrick and offers an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Varrick. Gotta go unpack. But hey, listen — I'm going to town with my uncle tonight around seven. I'd think he'd like to meet you. Does that sound good?"

Varrick does not hesitate to agree, but he'd be a fool to not.

X

She comes just as expected, and Varrick can't help but beam when she does.

This is what he notices right away: her hair is straight when tamed, knowing no curve or yielding to any wave that might be coaxed out of her dark tresses; her eyes are grey, like an Airbender's, and somewhere down the line genetics must've gotten shuffled around because she is pure earth, and he can see the soil in her veins and the way the dirt seems to tremble around her; her glasses are slightly off-center, but that is only because they are perched upon the middle of her nose and there is a dent from years of wear and tear on the frame; and her lips are quick to smile as they are to settle back into a solemn crease. She is a skinny girl and nearly reaches his shoulder when standing next to him, which he finds both funny and surprising, considering her uncle is a hulking, middle-aged man who is overtly Earthbender in both the way he talks and the way he carries himself.

But her uncle - Sun Jie - ends up a kindly, welcome soul who speaks soft words roughly, accidentally. He questions Varrick about the shop and Varrick is quick to answer; her uncle seems impressed at his knowledge of all the outs and ins of the business, because before they leave, he shakes his hand and promises to visit once more to discuss it in more detail.

Zhu Li, when the man's back is turned, promises to come by often.

X

Zhu Li is good company, as it is.

She's naturally quiet, but knows when comfortable silence dances into awkwardness and also knows how to fix it. There's little to be known about her, she claims — she's only here for a little while, is a natural master at earthbending who prefers not to bend but brought a bag of dirt with her for emergencies, and in her free time she likes tinkering with trinkets and putting back together broken things.

"I do, too," he tells her, and he shows her all the gadgets he's been working on that would improve the seal skinning process and make a more profitable use of the leftover meat, as opposed to giving it away to the dogs afterwards.

She's genuinely interested, writing down notes to show her ever-busy uncle, promising that she'll get Varrick a good hour with him so that he could preach his ideas. And he smiles so wide when she nods her head and just listens to him talk and talk and talk. She doesn't even care that the words just seem to spill out of his mouth, falling from his tongue and scatter into the air like seeds in spring. They find a home in her mind, on her notepad, laden in her small smile, and her attentiveness, he thinks, is what traps him in the end.

X

Varrick turns eighteen and his father is better, comparatively.

He gets up now and walks around the house, tending to him and Manirak as he should have in the last few years he was gone. He cooks, too — dishes their mother used to make in the summertime, bread that was baked at night, jokes that she would have cracked at the dinner table. His mother seems to bleed into his father's personality, and it's a strange way of coping but it works. The money Varrick makes helps guide the man back on track, and somehow, pride swells within the eldest son.

So much that he brings Zhu Li home for dinner one night. And when his father tells him to keep her around or else Varrick would lose himself eventually, he's got enough mind to heed his advice.

X

"Varrick," Zhu Li's uncle, Sun Jie, drawls out after the aforementioned boy finished his presentation on his seal skin shop. "You're sitting on a gold mine."

He blinks once, twice, then asks the man to repeat it again.

"A gold mine. What you have is a profitable business, and what you are doing is making it more profitable. You're the richest man in the village — don't you notice that?" Sun Jie says.

And to be honest, no, he hasn't. It's been a comfortable life thus far, a big step up from the months spent after his mother's death, but _richest_ — Varrick thinks on it for a few seconds before shaking his head. He never noticed it. He never had a reason to.

"Well, you are," Sun Jie tells him. He places a hand on Varrick's shoulder to make the young man look at him, then continues, "What are you still doing in the South Pole? I'll tell you right now: the North doesn't have this kind of business. You're ahead of your time. If you move up there, you'll make it big — maybe you can even take that techie part of you and do something other than selling seal skins to nearby fishermen, at least when the time is right. You have enough money to move. Why don't you?"

Varrick's mouth runs dry as he tries to come up with a reason that sounds at least a little bit legitamite. And then: "It's home."

It's pathetic and he knows it. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth because he knows that this is a bonafide lie tinged with his own desire for adventure. Then he thinks of Manirak and his father who wallows in his own sadness and perhaps — in its own, little way — it wasn't that much of a lie.

But Sun Jie stares at him like he said the wrong thing, and Varrick reddens with embarrassment.

"You can make another home elsewhere," the man tells him, directing the other to the window of the Earthbender's house. He points beyond the expanse of ice and towards the melting horizon. "Look at where you are. And look where you can be. Varrick, if you let this business go to waste — if you put it off, if you don't do it now — you'll be stuck here like your old man. And I know you don't want that. I know you want something better."

Varrick says nothing to this and allows the silence to settle. He feels Sun Jie's eyes on him, hears the man exhale as if he thinks his words have been lost on him. But they haven't.

When he returns home, Varrick almost asks his father about leaving. _Almost_.

X

When under stress, build.

He's not quite sure what he's making — a rough idea, yes, but nothing solid in his mind — yet he knows it'll be something useful. At least, he hopes so.

Zhu Li sits in a swivel chair by his desk, one leg tucked under another and her eyes focused on his work. He gives a smirk when he glances at her; she looks odd in his old shirt and his brother's sweatpants, and even weirder with her hair up in a bun as opposed to her usual Earth Kingdom hairstyle. But she had insisted that all of the clothes she had brought over to the South Pole were stuffy and uncomfortable, and unfortunately, the weather here does not fare nicely for anything else.

"Why are you smiling?" she goes to ask, resting her chin on top of her hand.

"Because you look funny," he says without really meaning to. Realizing his mistake, he adds, "A good funny."

"How can I look good funny?" she deadpans, glaring at him with such an intensity that he drops his screwdriver.

"You're still pretty," he tells her as he scrambles to pick up his fallen tool. But then he remembers that that isn't something he should say, either, so he quickly recovers, "Zhu Li, could you — er, give me the... the thing?"

He realizes that pointing vaguely to a pile of scraps of metal and tools wouldn't really help her, but before he could specify what thing, she has already procured the desired item: the last piece of machinery needed to complete his work.

"Thanks," he says, smiling. "You know, when I tell Manirak to do a thing, he hasn't a clue what I want."

"Manirak is _twelve_, Varrick," Zhu Li returns, reverting back to her position on her chair. She pushes her glasses closer to her face and says, "Besides. Great minds think alike."

"You are not a great mind," he teases, mimicking her words as he connects a few wires together.

For what's it's worth, a piece of earth goes flying and hits him in the face.

"You are a _greater _mind," he corrects, and he swears that Zhu Li blushes as red as could be, even if that frown on her face remains resilient.

X

Varrick brings up the prospect of leaving with his father at the dock, and it's one of the many mistakes he will make in his lifetime.

His father does not take the news lightly. The net in his hands drops into the sea, and the fish entangled in the rope scatter away in fear. Varrick watches the water swirl around the man and he has to remember that his father earned his name for a reason.

But he stands his ground.

"You have no control over me anymore. I'm of age," Varrick tells him with a finality that surprises him. He sidesteps his father and gathers the net in his own hands, yanking it back onto the ice. The few unlucky fish that were still snarled in are immediately killed by Varrick's staff; as he collects the fish into a bag, he says, "I'm merely letting you know that I plan on leaving by my next birthday."

Amorak grabs him by the elbow and forces his son to look at him. "And do what? Make money far away? You're just going to leave your family?"

"I can't support you forever," Varrick returns just as gruffly.

"We need you."

"You _think_ you need me."

"Varrick, this is home."

This doesn't faze him. Varrick slams the staff into the ice. "You think I'm just going stay here for the rest of my life? Just because you're too lazy to take care of yourself? Everything I did, I did for Manirak. Not you. Remember that."

"Remember who gave you a place to stay while you were off playing businessman," his father replies evenly.

"_Me_. I gave myself a place to stay."

A whip of ice collides with Varrick's chest, and he is pushed off the dock and into the icy waters. Some fishermen around the shoreline rush to his rescue, but the young man needs none; he pulls himself back onto land and watches his father storm off into the village. The men surround Varrick and bring him to the nearest hut, asking him questions and making sure that he's alright, but the image of his father retreating burns in his mind. It's the final answer - no means no, and he's not afraid to enforce it.

X

Zhu Li plans to leave, incidentally.

"It'll only be for this year, and then I can come back," she tells him by way of explanation. They're in the city, a few ways away from the village, alone on the streets paved with bricks and the seeds of industrialization. It's Sun Jie's work; the South Pole is finally catching up with the rest of the world. The sounds of the Winter Solstice Carnival fill the brisk air and remind him of his absence at home. He should be celebrating with his family, but instead he is here with Zhu Li, on business, technically, but mostly to enjoy her company.

"Why?" he asks, and he must sound annoying because he knows why — Sun Jie told the both of them over dinner why Zhu Li must leave. But he'd like to hear confirmation from the woman herself, so he asks again when she doesn't answer the first time.

She sighs, and he relishes her hesitance. "Varry, I told you already. I didn't finish school yet. But once I do, I promise I'll come back if you're still here."

A sadness lingers between them and he hates how it makes him feel. His mother's death had left him bitter and cold, but Zhu Li's absence will leave him lost and hopeless. He glances at her and she looks the same as he probably does: withdrawn into a lacking coat, shaking from the cold, a bit hungry and a bit dejected. It bothers him, if only because while he knows how to deal with being sad, he hasn't got a clue how to handle Zhu Li being so. Varrick bumps his shoulder against hers and cracks a smile when she looks up at him.

"I'll race you to the penguin sleds," he says. "But I must warn you, I'm quick on my feet, more so than you are, Zhu Li."

"Oh, you _wish_," and off she goes, her boots clacking against the pavement, her hair flowing freely behind her.

When he looks back on this moment, he reckons that he will remember the snow beginning to fall just as she turns to beckon him to run faster, damn it, before she gets lost in the streets that unlike him, she did not grow up with.

And he _runs,_ chasing her with a laughter he has not known for the longest time.

X

Varrick finds the day of her departure that he really does love the way her hand fits in his.

He brings their hands closer to his face and inspects their fingers intertwined, half-serious and half-joking with his scrutiny. Then he nudges her to draw her attention towards him and away from the big boat that stands at the dock, waiting for her let him go and pick up her bags and leave.

He tries to stay positive. "Hey, this is nice. Why didn't we do this earlier, Zhu Li?"

She gives a laughing sigh and shakes her head. "Because you're a fool, Varrick."

"I'm offended, Zhu Li, and I'll have you know-"

"Shut up," she says, and she launches herself into his arms and clutches him like it'll be the last time they'll ever see each other. But he takes it and hugs her so tightly as if she dares to disappear entirely.

X

Monotony - it's the only word that he can use to describe the months thereafter.

Of course, his business does well. Exceptionally well if he does say so himself. Sun Jie stops by occasionally until one day he announces that he will be leaving for another village soon. And then that day comes and Varrick finds himself at the apex of wealth within his hometown, awfully lonely and awfully bored with the idea of home.

His father still refuses to talk to him, and Varrick refuses to acknowledge the whip's mark that was left on his skin. Manirak is left in the middle of it all, but if Varrick is honest with himself he finds himself not really caring.

It's terrible, he realizes, this life he's left to lead. Not that he can do much about it, but that fact does not stop him from yearning for something more.

X

Until, of course, the week before his nineteenth birthday arrives.

A group of men dressed in Fire Nation winterwear - stuff too flimsy to actually survive the winter the South Pole has to offer - come by and ask to speak to Varrick, son of Amarok.

"This is him," he tells them, and they seem surprised to hear this.

One of the older men speaks up. "We represent the interests of the Fire Nation Royal Family. You may want to sit down for this, son."

Varrick - hesitantly, noting the guards that flank both sides of the group - places the towel he had been using to clean the counter to the side and finds a seat in the nearest chair. He clears his throat and awkwardly asks, "What can I do for you?"

"Fire Lady Mai had requested us to find a Southern Water Tribe shipping corporation to add to the United Market Coalition that she established under the direction of Avatar Aang. If you hadn't heard, the previous one declared bankruptcy after a few bad investments. One of our contacts, Zhu Sun Jie, had directed us to you, but - well, we weren't expecting a young man nor a small seal skin operation in a village," the other man explains. "If you are not interested or not confident in your business, then we will find another corporation to replace-"

"What do I have to do?" Varrick interrupts, holding a hand up to stop the man from speaking any more.

The representatives lift their eyebrows in surprise and exchange a few doubtful looks amongst each other.

"Well," one of them says slowly, "Sun Jie has arranged transportation to the Fire Nation for you to meet with the leaders of the coalition. You will be officially recognized at that point, so long as they agree, of course. You will have two months to respond to the invitation, and if-"

Varrick doesn't even take two seconds. "I'm in."

X

He climbs into his father's old canoe at the break of dawn, patched up by chewing gum and spare wood, bringing nothing but a knapsack filled with two changes of clothes and a binder of his business records. He denied his father access to his bank account but left half of his assets to Manirak and only Manirak; the only thing he left for his father is a note and an instruction manual detailing how to run the business and operate the various machinery he has left behind, two things that Amorak will either disregard or bring himself to take seriously.

When Varrick pushes the canoe into the sea, he hopes that one day his family will join him eventually.

X

"I'm looking for Zhu Li," Varrick says for perhaps the fourth time to the secretary of the university that Sun Jie told him that she would be attending. "Zhu Li, you know, about this tall and has the softest skin you will ever feel. Earthbending prodigy that refuses to bend? Really smart? Glasses that needs to be fixed - come on. She's distinctive."

The secretary is flustered by his insistence. "I'm sorry, sir, as I've said, I can't release information about any of the students. You will have to wait until the classes are over."

"Damn it, this is _important_," he persists, leaning his hands on the desk. "I am meaning to take her-"

He feels a hand on his back and he turns, something about the ridiculousness of the fact that the security had _actually_ came to take him away beginning to tumble from his mouth. But the words are lost on his tongue when he sees Zhu Li - without glasses, weirdly, but undeniably her - standing behind him, jaw slacked and surprise glistening in her eyes.

"You got out," is all she says.

"I did, yes, I got out Zhu Li," he repeats, smiling and taking her hand to pull her closer. "And you're coming with me to the Fire Nation, okay. I need your company and impeccable advisement."

"You need _me_," she corrects, the corners of her lips tugging into a smile.

"Yes," he exhales, finally putting his arms around her and shrugging into her warmth. "I need you."

X

The Fire Nation capital can be seen in the horizon, the grandeur of the palace scraping the sunrise and the lights of the city beginning to flicker on. Beside him, Zhu Li shudders in both excitement and nervousness, her eyes wide open despite it being so early, and so long since she's had a decent amount of sleep.

"Hey," she says when she nudges into him, still focused on the scene enfolding before them. "Since you're my boss now, I should call you 'sir.'"

"It has a ring to it," Varrick agrees, smirking.

Zhu Li turns to him, expression stoic as it was when they first met, but her face bright with happiness. "As my first order of business as your assistant, I advise you that your ego deflate, sir," she says.

He bows his head in a chuckle. "I'm afraid it'll only get worse from here, Zhu Li."

She laughs and laughs and laughs, resting her head on his shivering shoulders, and perhaps, he thinks, leaving home was not a mistake after all.

X

(Varrick slips on the ice and his blood spills everywhere, leaking out like a broken faucet, covering the land around him as he runs for either one of his parents. He panics when he sees more red than he should and cannot find his father around so that the man can save him. But his mother is quick to gather him in her arms and lay him against her chest. He cries and cries and cries until he watches her collect the sea between her fingers and pass them over his broken skin, stitching the injury together until there is not a scratch to see.

"This is water, Varrick," she coos as she wipes his tears away. "It's what you're made of. Unchanging, unyielding, dangerous — yet gentle. As long as you can find it, you're home, no matter where you are, no matter how far you go. It'll always be with you.")

X

When he wakes, he is pleased to see Zhu Li nestled at the foot of his bed, tired out by the endless day they spent working. He stretches his arms and wrestles out of the sheets, fighting the urge to crawl back into well-needed — and much missed — sleep. But there is work to be done and a meeting to attend, and really, dozing off must have been an accident on both their parts.

Shaking his head and suppressing a yawn, Varrick turns to the window. He'd built his Fire Nation home nearest to the ocean, picked his bedroom to be the one facing the South Pole. He gives a sad smile and observes the tide push and pull against the shore, remembering the day he almost convinced himself that it was him that was in control of the sea.

_This is water_, he thinks. _This is home_.

When he looks over his shoulder and watches Zhu Li subconsciously move to the warm spot in the middle of the bed and wrap the discarded blanket around her body, he is sure that being here is right - that this, above anything else, is what he has wanted for the entirety of his life.

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><p><strong>an:** my muse kind of slapped me with the thought of hm, maybe i should write lok fanfiction, so i started this after i took the SAT and realized that i actually really fucking love zhurrick. repetition of the songs "heirloom" by sleeping at last and "welcome home, son" by radical face, a labor of love, and a lot of missed sleep went to finishing this. i hope you all enjoy.


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